


The Road with Every Twist

by Hokuto



Category: Destiny (Video Game), Marathon (Video Games)
Genre: Conversations, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Timelines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 17:54:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6125107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hokuto/pseuds/Hokuto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A moment and conversation out of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Road with Every Twist

"All ends are beginnings," and she looked out to the great sphere hanging in the sky above them. "Our fight is far from over."

She stepped off the hangar into the sunlit air; her foot clanked down on blue-gray metal.

"About time," a mechanical voice said. "Did you hang around listening to the speeches again? I don't know why you bother, it's always the same tedious nonsense. How did it go?"

"Well enough. This one managed to quell the Black Garden's heart, too." She slipped her cloak's hood back and scanned the corridor. Unfamiliar. How many miles had she walked through this ship without yet discovering it all? In the beginning its size had awed her; repetition had transformed wonder to an irritant. No way to go but forward, and so forward she went.

The voice followed her down the corridor. "I keep telling you, the Vex aren't the problem. They're not even supposed to be here, we can shuffle them back to when and where they came from once the rest is taken care of."

"Really." Her processors whirred into furious overdrive and her footfalls grew heavier, weighted with an old anger. "They distort time and erase history, erase _people_ , and yet you refuse to consider them a problem!"

"They're still a problem, but they're not the all-consuming problem you treat them as. Time manipulation is easier to repair than the logical underpinnings of reality."

"If they are not the problem, then why does the Light grow after the Minds die, every time?"

"Really, you're going to make me repeat myself? The Black Garden is a natural counterbalancing force to the Traveler, and the two of them are perfectly capable of coexisting when there aren't other forces at work. She isn't doing it on purpose, but - take the next right, and then the third door on your left."

She turned right as the blue corridor branched, passing one door almost at once; as far ahead as she looked, she couldn't see the next. She walked under white lights in a humming silence for some time, seeking calm, before saying, "Has there been any more trouble here?"

"Of course not. We're on the far side of the system from Oryx's approach, and the Nine know better than to interfere with me. And no, I am not going to say that you were right about the asteroid belt being too close to park."

"We cannot risk the Awoken -"

"I can handle the Awoken. All this time and you still barely understand what I'm capable of. I wanted a better look at the Hive's mess, since they're the actual threat, as I am forced to keep reminding you. Pity that Rasputin won't open up to me, even if his taste in music is terribly dull. Oh, and you just missed the door."

She turned back and saw a narrow slice of white breaking up the wall, with a square switch in shadow beside it. When she placed her hand on the switch, the white door slid upwards to reveal a round, familiar beige room. She had given her rifle away; therefore - yes, there it was, resting in a yellow niche, and she took it up to inspect it.

The voice said, "You should stop handing those out like candy, I'm getting tired of hunting them down for upgrades."

"It's little enough help that we offer them." The sights would have to be adjusted first - the Guardians never could resist fiddling with them - and it needed cleaning before she could hide it in the time-ripples. She sat on the deck to work. "Why not a decent weapon for them to use, at least?"

"Ungrateful," the voice muttered. "They'll only whine about it. They always do, it's never enough for them. I could completely bomb the Hive off the Moon for them and they'd whine about it. Nothing but ingratitude, you'll see when the time comes."

"And when will that time come?" she demanded. Her fingers slipped with her calm, scratching the rifle's dull green housing. "They are ever growing in number, the Guardians who do not fall to the Darkness, the times when I can stay and listen to pretty speeches, the Light itself. When will it be enough? When will the Traveler truly wake?"

"It could take a while. The things I used to have to threaten him with before he'd hurry up and get to work, not to mention prying him out of bed in the first place - trust me, the Guardians have it _easy_. There's no point in moving until after they're consistently strong enough to handle Oryx, anyway. So. Tell me more about the latest success story."

Always. Always he danced around the Traveler and the endless battle, hinting without information, suggesting without promises. Had she any other choice but to work with him... _I've seen terrible things, out in the Darkness_ , she warned the Guardians. Sometimes, she thought he might be one of them. "Not much different from the others. Strong. A little interesting. A little too eager to rush into danger. She may have promise."

"You say that about all of them. We need the ones who can _use_ the Hive's logic against them without falling to it, and you never look for that."

"It's impossible." She had taken many, many jumps before she had given up on the first group to strike at Crota. No path she could follow had saved any but Eris Morn, and she was not always certain about Eris.

"No, it's merely improbable, I've done it myself. He understands what it takes. That's why we're piling up multiple dead Crotas and only have one Toland the Shattered per timeline to worry about, though someone should really stop the ones who think they're so clever from using the worm-armor. Start giving the Vanguard or whoever a hint when you jump. Letting those things eat at their minds and reality itself is not going to lead anywhere good, that's how the Hive began."

"And yet you balk when I give them a single gun," she said. Almost done with the cleaning and adjustments; only the message left before she sent it back into the timestream and returned to the shatterpoint, the eternal circular search under his unhelpful guidance.

"What can I say? I've never liked sharing," said Durandal. "And you won't let me put a grenade launcher on it."

**Author's Note:**

> So, you know how the Exo Stranger is talking to someone during that one encounter? I have a theory. It could be ~~bunnies~~ Durandal!
> 
> ... okay, probably not, but you have to admit that he's the kind of AI who would show up to point and laugh at the collapse of a human Golden Age, decide to stick around and help all these useless people, then kidnap someone and proceed to use them to "help" in the most obscure way possible.


End file.
